


2036

by Xinette



Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Kira Wins, Ambiguous/Open Ending, But he's evil, F/F, Light Wins AU, Light Yagami kills people, Moral Ambiguity, Original Cast, Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, Past Character Death, The Lady or the Tiger Dilemma, There's lesbians, Tragedy, Yagami Light is Kira, Yagami Light is a Dick, Yagami Light is evil, bisexual light yagami, but like, but one of them dies, honestly the main OC is too, not a self-insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22698958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xinette/pseuds/Xinette
Summary: Many years after he defeated his last significant opposition, Kira rules the world with an iron fist. Still there are attempts at resistance. But Haruko, who just works for a menial job and reports to the secret police, wants nothing to do with them. However, things don't always go as planned.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character, fem OC/fem OC
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	1. Murder

**Author's Note:**

> So the readers on FFN have been treated (?) to this one a bit longer than you guys, as I originally wrote and published this chapter in June of 2017. (Sage1111 betaread this first chapter way back in the day, so thx.) Right after finishing my Hetalia longfic, I figured I should probably finish this one up, too. Then it took me a while to post it because I just became so done with Ao3. I figured femslash February was as good a time as any to post.

Haruko wrote the report that would kill her manager while sitting on her futon. Her legs were crossed, a pile of paperwork was on her knees, a pencil was in one hand and some cashews were in the other. _I’m worried about my manager_ , she wrote. But she wasn’t, really. She knew what would happen because she wrote those words.

He knew the rules as well as she did, as well as anyone did. And he had chosen to break them, knowing full and well what the punishment was. Haruko kept writing. _He lamented_ —Lament was a good word. Oba-chan had been so impressed when she’d said it for the first time— _about the state of the world, nostalgic_ —another good word— _for the way the world was before Kira. He talked about committing some petty—_ Haruko thought more about this word choice. There weren’t petty crimes anymore—murder, vandalism and jaywalking all had the same punishment.

So, she crossed it out. _crime, so Kira would do him in for good. I tried to talk him out of it, convince him of all the things Kira has done for the world, but he wouldn’t listen._

_I hope he doesn’t end up hurting someone._

It was short, but it said all that it needed to. Either her manager would commit some petty crime, he’d be killed, and she’d look good. Or, he would back out, but her report would show that he’d been thinking negatively about Kira, and he’d be killed, and she’d look good.

It wouldn’t be hard to corroborate her story. Anyone who knew her manager would know that he’d been at least nostalgic for a long time. Nostalgia was a dangerous emotion; it led to hatred, useless attempts at resistance, and, eventually, death. Haruko was just letting her manager skip the middle steps.

And, besides, speaking against Kira was crime, and he’d definitely committed it. She was right, so she had no reservations.

Haruko popped a few more cashews into her mouth, checking over the fields. Today _was_ the 4th, and her manager _was_ Masashi Miyamoto. All fields were filled out correctly, so she slipped the report into her bag and left her apartment.

She surveyed the street. The only person in sight was a man scurrying on the other side, carrying his briefcase over his head, as if to shield him from rain, but it was a sunny day.

That wasn’t that unusual. The streets seemed to almost always be empty these days, or, at least, empty of people. There were always cars parked on both sides of the street. Many of them were slowly rusting, and Haruko suspected that most of their owners were dead.

It seemed that way, now, like most places were dead. Block after block was full of empty apartments, shuttered shops and broken-down cars.

The dead places didn’t bother Haruko as much as the places that held on to the illusion of life. She’d seen clothes out on the line before, having been drenched several times over by the rain, windows left open, the wind drifting in and moving the curtains, television sets broadcasting to an empty audience.

Haruko’s thoughts were growing dark, so she started whistling.

There were three pieces of evidence that life still existed in this part of town. One was Haruko herself—dressed in bright colors and whistling, a slight skip in her step. Another was the security cameras—posted on every corner with lenses like eyes that never blinked. A third was the posters—they covered almost every building, the same image, the same face, printed over and over again. Kira’s face.

The odd thing about the posters was that they were interchanged almost monthly, but never consistently. So, one building would be covered with posters from six months ago—Kira mostly in shadow, glaring at the camera—and the one right next to had just been added—Kira smiling, surrounded by children.

Haruko paused by that one. She didn’t think she’d seen it before. So, she ducked into an alleyway and walked until she was almost completely surrounded by darkness. There shouldn’t be any security cameras here.

She pulled one of the posters off the wall and put it in her bag. Then, she exited out the other side of the hallway and continued on to where she turned her reports in.

The place was an old police station, Haruko was pretty sure. It would explain the layout and the elaborate crest on the wall, under which were the words: _To serve and protect._ Besides, Kira liked irony.

Or so Haruko thought. She had really made up a lot about his personality based on what tidbits she’d heard and things she’d seen.

This time, there were five people waiting in front of her. One was an old woman, knitting. Haruko thought it was a little strange that she would do that here, in this place of murder and fear. Then, there was a teenager in red shoes. Haruko saw him almost every week.

A short woman walked out, dressed in a floral skirt and pink cardigan, and an older man lumbered behind her. “Next!” she called out, and the old woman stood up.

Haruko sat down in the last of the long row of chairs. This used to intimidate her so much, coming here, meeting with these people. They could kill her, and easily. But, since, she’d realized a lot of things. For one, it wasn’t that much easier for them to kill her here than anywhere else. For another, she just had to keep them happy, and that wasn’t that hard to do.

The woman in the pink cardigan came out once more, for the teenager, and then it was Haruko’s turn.

Haruko knew that this woman liked her. It was pretty obvious from the way she softened up around her, and it probably helped that Haruko was always smiling around her. Oba-chan was right—people really did open up to positive attitudes.

Especially today. She sat down, bringing her legs closer together and keeping her eyes down. Vulnerable. “So, Haruko,” she rose her eyes to meet Haruko’s, “how’s it been this week.”

“Long,” Haruko said. It had been a pretty easy week, but it was best to seem sympathetic.

“Yeah,” the woman said. “For me, too.”

Haruko watched the woman roll something around in her mind, around her tongue. She was thinking about saying something—but what? Haruko had to be calm, responsive and listening. She had to care.

“I really shouldn’t be telling you this, but …” the woman trailed off. Haruko perked up. The woman sighed. “I’ve been offered a promotion.”

Based on what little Haruko had been able to gather about the SLA’s hierarchy, one step above her was the lieutenants, or, as they were better know, the red-eyes. According to Oba-chan, they had given up half of their lifespan to see everyone’s names, which meant Haruko had to avoid them like the plague.

“It comes at a price,” the woman went on. She was looking past Haruko now.

“But doesn’t everything?” Haruko said, smiling. It wouldn’t really affect her either way although it might be a little better to keep the woman in this position. That way, she could keep this relationship going.

“I guess so,” she said. “But this one is steep.” The woman in the pink cardigan smiled. “So, how have you been?”

“Good,” Haruko said. “I have my report.” She reached down, pulled the paper out of her bag and handed it to the woman.

“Okay,” the woman said, flipping through it. “Thanks.”

Haruko smiled. She wondered if she should mention something else, about how she would listen to the woman and how much she cared.

“You can go now,” the woman said. “I’m sorry to keep you.”

Haruko nodded and left the room, passing everyone else who was waiting in line. She was relieved to be done with these people. And so, she walked home, talking the same route she always did.

Haruko liked to orientate herself by propaganda posters.

For example, to walk home from the old police station, she walked straight for three blocks until she came to the mural of Kira on the side of the grocery store. There, she turned left and walked for four blocks until she reached the list of laws posted on the side of the museum. They always seemed to be adding new ones, so Haruko had to walk across a tarp and avoid paint spills. After that, she walked for another block until she got to her run-down apartment building.

Ten flights of stairs later, Haruko walked into her apartment, setting her bag down. She remembered to pull out the new poster she’d taken down on her way there and grabbed a pair of scissors.

She sat back down on her futon and cut out Kira from the poster, taking out the background and the children, until all she had was him.

Haruko rolled little pieces of tape, stuck them to the back and pressed the poster above her futon. It looked good—flat, background completely removed.

And, it fit in perfectly with all of her other portraits of him.


	2. Negligence

Beneath Haruko was a narrow-boarded dark wooden floor. On either side of her were large, imposing white walls, completely blank. They looked like they belonged in a courthouse or some other stately building, but Haruko was in her childhood home. She knew this instinctively.

Haruko took a deep breath and started running. Her feet were clad in socks, and, because of this, she kept slipping. Behind her, a woman, who she knew to be her mother, called out, "Haruuuukooooo! Stop!"

A smile forced its way across Haruko's face. She kept running. Then, she turned a corner and stopped. In the middle of the hallway the body of an older woman was lying, her hands spread out into the hallway as if reaching for something, and her eyes glassed over and staring directly at Haruko.

Haruko screamed. Her mother knelt down behind her and wrapped her hands around Haruko's waist. "It's OK," she repeated over and over again, along with Haruko's real name.

That was the point in the dream when, without fail, Haruko woke up. She stretched out on her bed and glanced at the Kira posters that were hanging above her.

There didn't seem to be too much to that, however. It made sense that finding a body would be a traumatic experience, although it probably wasn't that uncommon for Haruko's childhood. Oba-chan explained to her that her parents were servants that worked in Kira's grand palace in Tokyo. Her mother had changed Kira’s sheets; her father had tended to his flower beds.

Haruko sighed and sat up. Her alarm wouldn’t go off for another thirty minutes, but she could never go back to sleep after one of those dreams anyway.

She walked over to the wall and flicked the light switch on. The only lights in her apartment were harsh fluorescents that cast her crappy furniture and posters in a harsh, cold light. From the door, she could see a majority of her propaganda collection, the posters on the walls and ceiling.

The entire world was spread out in front of her, in a way. In the beginning, she had saved the entirety of every poster she came across. All of those eyes, staring down at her, eyes of people she had never met, in locations she’d never been, had faced in her in her apartment. They had representation, of course. All races, genders, etc.

Overshadowing all of that, though, was a pair of coffee-brown ones. Kira was in every poster, always a younger Japanese man, usually in his twenties or thirties, with light brown hair and eyes the color of coffee with too much milk in it.

Haruko had been collecting posters for long enough that she knew it couldn’t have been the same person in all of them; she held no delusions about that. Instead, she made a game out of guessing when they would switch models.

The shortest-lived one had only lasted three months, and all five of his posters were hanging at the end of the cabinets in the corner that dictated Haruko’s kitchen. His gaze was sharper than the rest of them, his cheekbones higher. More handsome, but, somehow, un-Kira.

In the olden times, Christians had assumed their God was an old white man with a beard and no hair; nowadays, people knew he was young and Japanese. Funny how that worked out.

Haruko made a pot of coffee and changed her clothes into the uniform of the hotel where she worked. Over her dresser was one of her favorite posters of Kira. They had tried to invoke the old style of state portraits, picturing Kira standing by an old wooden desk, awkwardly resting one hand on it. It looked so ridiculous, so out of place in time and mood that Haruko couldn’t help but laugh whenever she saw it. Though, she shouldn’t criticize. Haruko wanted nothing more than to have her own portrait taken like that, some day.

The coffee was done. So, Haruko grabbed a bite to eat, then left the house all together.

Walking to her job took the opposite route of the walk to the SLA’s office. It was three left turns, one by that statue of Kira that used to have the little girl in it. The surface had been reduced to rough marble after they’d removed her figure, probably because an actual little girl died in front of the statue. Or so rumor had it. Those were the kind of rumors Haruko picked up from the SLA’s office, which were generally the most and least reliable place to get them.

From there, there were a couple more buildings covered in small posters. The hotel was on a small rise, and Haruko liked to stop on her way walking up it. If she looked to the slight southeast, she could see the perpetually-lit water tower with Kira’s face on it.

The hotel was an older-looking building, with a complicated, beige stone façade. Today, several shiny, new black cars with tinted windows were parked outside. The SLA.

Haruko took in a deep breath. She was one of their informants; she wouldn’t get in too much trouble. The manager of the hotel was small fish to them. They wouldn’t send a red-eyes to deal with it.

Walking into through the hotel lobby, Haruko was reminded of why she’d chosen to work at this hotel in the first place. Every part of it, from the crystal chandelier above to the dizzying carpet patterns bellow reaped opulence and power. Wealth was power, and in order to get closer to power it was necessary to get closer to wealth.

The kitchen seemed a world away, especially now that all operations had stopped and all the staff was gathered in the lobby.

Four SLA officers had been sent to deal with the situation. At the front was a middle-aged man, mildly overweight, with greying hair. A streak of light caught one of his eyes, and the reflection showed back in Haruko’s face. Red.

Haruko’s stomach dropped. This was a mistake. Coming here was a mistake. Killing her manager—it would be the end of her.

“My name is Michika Itou,” he said. “I’m here to ensure that the hotel continues to run well after the rightful punishment of your manager.” He looked directly at Haruko, his red-tinted eyes meeting hers. “Haruko, I presume?”

Odd he was referring to her by her first name and not even her real one at that. “Y—yes,” Haruko said.

“You’ll be managing the hotel from now on.” He looked at the rest of the staff. “Any questions?”

Obviously, there were none.

“Good,” he said, stepping off the table. “I’ll be wanting to speak with you in private.” Once again, he was looking directly at Haruko.

Haruko took him to a conference room that hadn’t been reserved for that day.

“Is it bugged?” he asked her.

Haruko shook her head. “We prioritize the privacy of our clients,” she said. It was true; they had to, in order to get people who were close to Kira. And getting people who were close to Kira was the only way to run a business these days.

“Good,” he said. He pulled one of the chairs back from the table and sat on it with a fluid ease.

Haruko stayed where she was, standing awkwardly, stiffly. What was she doing here, in this room, with this man?

“Mind telling me why your real name isn’t on any records?” he asked.

That was one thing Haruko could never figure out. Her mother had taken care of her, obviously, and wanted her to be safe. It was probably the safest thing she could have done; to give her a real name, one whispered into her ear every night, that no one else ever heard. “I don’t know,” she said. “It wasn’t my choice.”

“Hmmm,” he said. He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. “You’re an informant.”

Haruko nodded. “I want to do my part, to eliminate crime,” she said, trying to embody the spirit she saw in the posters.

“I’m sure,” he said. “And it helps, to stay beneath suspicion.”

Haruko smiled, trying to cover her inner thoughts as much as possible.

“So, I could report you to the SLA. Or—” he said. “Were you lying about the bugs?”

“No,” Haruko said.

“Hmm,” he said. “I would report you to the SLA. If—” he paused for a long moment, took out another piece of paper and scribbled an address on it. “If I didn’t know something about living beneath suspicion myself.” He slid the paper across the table, where it caught a draft and drifted off to the left.

Haruko took a step forward and right and slammed her hand down on the paper. “What do you want me to do?” she asked. It was probably sexual. It always was, with this kind of man.

“Go there tonight, past curfew, and you’ll find out,” he said. “If you don’t show—remember, I know your real name.”

Those words sent a chill down Haruko’s spine. It had been a long time since anyone had known that about her.

He smiled. “I’ll see you then.” And left.

Haruko tucked the note into her breast pocket and took the stairs down to the kitchen.

“Alright,” she said, standing on the same table as the SLA officers had beforehand. “You heard what they said. It’s time to get to work.” She dismissed everyone but the kitchen staff. “You usually start cooking breakfast by now, right?”

Several of them nodded.

“OK,” Haruko said. “What’s on the menu for today.”

“Soufflé,” one of the older chiefs, a red-faced white woman said. “But I don’t think we have time to make it.”

“Why not?” she said. “It’s best served hot, isn’t it?”

“People are already—”

“Then, you should hurry,” she said.

The rest of the day, Haruko found herself running around the hotel more than usual. All operations had been affected by the late start, and she couldn’t allow the hotel to fall behind. Especially on her first day as manager.

Now, it was also pretty likely this would be her last day as manager. That thought haunted her all day, rubbing up against her thoughts like the piece of paper was rubbing up against her breast.

Even then, no one would be able to say that she hadn’t worked hard, that she hadn’t been a good person, that she hadn’t put in every once of effort into what she wanted.


	3. Conspiracy

It wasn’t that Haruko hadn’t snuck out past curfew before. It was one of those things everyone did; still punishable by death, naturally, but almost impossible to enforce, especially with knowledge of the security cameras. It just had been a while.

Those nights, in the humid, English air, sneaking away from Oba-chan as much as Kira, didn’t cross Haruko’s mind too often, but they were all she was thinking about as she dashed in between alleyways, following the address.

Tokyo was very different than England at night. It was deader only because it was more alive during the day.

She could have not gone. Haruko had considered that, for a moment, that evening, as Kira’s eyes watched her chop vegetables. But to not go would be certain death; going would only be likely death. And Haruko knew where all the security cameras were.

Besides, if it was what she thought it was, she could always report it to the SLA.

Haruko headed down the alleyways, the posters shrouded by dark. It was along the same route as the SLA’s office, but further along the same path, in the old warehouse district, by the docks.

She had never been here during the day, but, now that it was night, she couldn’t help but wonder what they looked like in the day. They almost imposed a second horizon against the night sky—one with boxy, artificial shapes. 

A lone yellow light shone down from the top of one of the warehouses, showing it was number forty-five. The address was for sixty-three, so Haruko counted eighteen warehouses, hoping the number system was logical.

It was, and the eighteenth warehouse was lit with a yellow, oily light from inside.

The interior was set up like an office, with a large plywood desk facing some chairs, ripped and covered in mold. Several kerosene lamps were set up around the space, casting two figures in silhouette.

If the man wanted to kill her, he would have done so already. So, this must be the meeting he was talking about.

“Hello?” Haruko asked the dark interior of the warehouse.

Both figures turned around to look her in the eye. “Haruko,” the man said. “Please, have a seat.”

She sat down in the chair closest to her, an armchair with a large slash through the seat that revealed the yellowish, stuffed interior. 

“I’m Aoi,” the other figure, a woman said. She had a well-shaped figure, with two intense eyes behind a rather large nose.

“You can call me Michika,” the man said.

Haruko committed their names to memory. Names were power, and to give someone a name was to limit their power. People used to summon demons by saying their name. But, by the same token, it was how they were exorcised. “Haruko,” Haruko said, wondering if he had already told the woman—Aoi—her real name. “Why did you bring me here?”

“How long have you worked at the hotel?” Michika said.

“Seven years,” Haruko said. “If you wanted to interrogate me, you could have done that there.”

“So, since you were very young,” he said.

Haruko shook her head. “I was a teenager; I wasn’t that young.” And how terrible those years were, before anyone took her seriously.

“How old are you?” Aoi asked, a note of sarcasm in her voice.

“Twenty-six, this month,” Haruko said.

“A Scorpio,” Aoi said.

Haruko had no idea what that meant, but she nodded.

“The people there trust you, like you,” Michika said.

They occasionally complained that she worked them too hard, but, “generally, yes.”

“And your clients do,” he said.

Haruko nodded.

“There’s a meeting there, next week,” Michika said. “It would be good to have someone on the inside. And someone with your condition,” he nodded at the space above her head.

“What kind of meeting?” Haruko asked.

“One of the nations of the world is sending their ambassador to meet with Kira,” Aoi said.

“And why do you want me to be there?”

Aoi looked at Michika. Michika looked at Aoi.

“Did you …” Aoi paused. “Did you … not tell her?”

Michika shook his head. “It wasn’t safe,” he said.

“We’re the resistance,” Aoi said.

Haruko made a big show of turning her head to the right and left, looking at the wide expanse of unfilled warehouse space. “Really?” she said. “This is the whole resistance?”

“As far as you’re concerned, yes,” Michika said.

Haruko thought about laughing at that. It wouldn’t be a good idea, she decided. Michika still knew her real name.

“There are other cells,” Aoi said.

“And you’re resisting …” Haruko paused for a moment, letting the ridiculousness of her words settle in around them. “Kira,” she finished.

Michika and Aoi looked at each other. “Yes,” Aoi said.

“That’s suicide,” Haruko said. “You work for the SLA—you should know. What’s your plan, anyway?”

“Our plan?” Aoi said. She walked towards Haruko, every edge of her body outlined by the kerosene light. “You’re going to listen in on that meeting, tell us what they’re—”

“I think she means our goal, Aoi,” Michika said and sighed. “You poor kids—you don’t know anything but this world.”

“And this world is a perfectly fine one,” Haruko said.

“You don’t really believe that,” Michika said. “People used to be able to go where they wanted, do what they wanted, say what they wanted. Sure, there was infighting and disagreements and people did things they weren’t supposed to—but,” he sighed. “We were free.”

“Is that really something you’re willing to die for?” Haruko said. “Those lofty ideals. Are they worth your life?”

Michika walked right up to Haruko, so close it almost made her flinch. He tilted his head both ways, so that the vibrant red showed up behind his irises. “I think you’ve forgotten,” he said. “I don’t have much time left. I’ve given up enough of my lifespan for a worse cause already.”

Haruko shook her head, not letting herself be intimidated. “Which one did you join first?” she asked. “The resistance, or the SLA?”

“SLA,” he said, taking a few steps backwards. “I was once an opportunist, like yourself, but I’ve always been resistance in my heart.” He paused. “I’ve been taking the frivolous missions for a long time, hoping to find someone like yourself. I assumed it would be someone transgender—” he shrugged.

“Someone who’s name doesn’t match their name,” Aoi said. “Who can’t be killed except for by the red-eyes.”

“We’re going to figure out what the ambassador is planning, and then work from there,” Michika said. “Most likely, he will have some kind of access to Kira, and that’s something we could use.”

“Use to do what?” Haruko said.

Aoi shrugged. “Kill him, hopefully.”

A moment passed in complete silence.

“Kill … Kira?” Haruko said. “Do you even know if that’s possible? If he can kill people at will—”

“No,” Michika said. “But I’ve been working on this cause for a long time—much longer than either of you two kids—and we’re going to make progress on it.”

“No,” Haruko said. “You’re going to die.”

“Someday, yes,” Michika said. “But everybody dies someday.” He paused. “You know when we used to say that, we assumed it applied to people who were old and have already accomplished a lot in their life. Nowadays, by ‘someday’ we mean tomorrow.”

“And you will die tomorrow,” Haruko said. “If you keep this up.” She paused, wondering if she should remind him of this fact. “You know I’m an informant. And that I have no problem reporting people.”

Aoi grimaced at that, her normally pretty features becoming ugly.

“I know,” Michika said. “But whose word do you think they’ll believe? A lowly informant, or mine?” he said.

“The idea of a red-eyes being a member of the resistance is pretty far-fetched,” Haruko said. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“Precisely because it’s far-fetched,” Michika said. “Many lower-level operatives have been killed over the years.”

At those words, Haruko’s mind was filled with screaming, yelling in English, the sight of blood on the floor, Oba-chan’s lifeless—

“But they would never go after someone as high as myself. Above suspicion, and so, beneath it.” He smiled.

“Now we have two SLA members,” Aoi said. “I guess this is a good thing.”

“And what do you think killing Kira will accomplish?” Haruko asked. “Do you think everything will just go back to normal, afterwards?”

Michika nodded. “It would be nice to know what different national leaders are planning on doing. That was the organization system of the world, before Kira came along, and it will be afterwards.”

“How do you know someone won’t take his place?” Haruko asked.

“Because there never was one before him,” Aoi said. “He’s the only one who has ever existed, so there’s no reason to suspect another will.” She paused. “And if one does, we’ll kill him too.”

Haruko leaned back in her chair, trying to put all of the pieces together. It all depended on whether or not Kira’s power was transferable, but that wasn’t something any of them could know at that point.

“It’s not the man we have the problem with,” Aoi continued. “It’s the idea. That any of us could be killed at will, for any reason.” She paused. “And that the power to do so rests in the hands of a genocidal, egotistical, hubristic, selfish, self-proclaimed God, who’s as focused on getting people to worship him as he is trying to end crime.”

Haruko flinched at the harsh words.

“I bet you’ve never heard anyone say that before,” Aoi said. “But that’s the power that being here …” she gestured around the warehouse space, “gives me. Power that should be mine, anyway.”

“I don’t know,” Haruko said.

“You think she should be killed for saying that?” Michika asked.

“No,” Haruko said. “I can’t say I disagree with what you’re saying, but …” she paused. “I just don’t think it’s worth my life.”

“And what were you planning on pursuing beforehand?” Aoi asked. “Working your way up in the hotel business? Always living under the eyes of the posters and the security cameras? Now you can be apart of something bigger.”

“You don’t have to be willing to die for it,” Michika said. “I will kill you if you don’t help us. So you only have to want to live.”

Haruko nodded. “When’s the meeting?” she asked.


	4. Eavesdropping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to also give this one a fancy crime name, but it turns out the name for the crime of eavesdropping is just … eavesdropping.

The week that followed the warehouse meeting felt like ten years. Haruko managed a way to drill a small hole in the corner of the wall of the hotel’s largest conference room so that she could listen in on the conversation between the different ambassadors. It wasn’t quite invisible, only difficult to discern. Hopefully that would be enough.

That was all Haruko was putting her life on, now—hopefully.

She hadn’t reported Michika and Aoi to the SLA. It didn’t seem worth the risk of them not believing her and having her killed. And, although, she wasn’t usually afraid of the SLA, something about the two resistance fighters struck a chord with her heart. Especially Aoi.

The ambassadors arrived early that morning, jet-lagged and angry. They were the kind of guests that insisted the manager check them in and show them to their rooms. Haruko did this with a smile, repeating Oba-chan’s words about positivity like a mantra.

Then, it came time for the meeting, so Haruko crouched down in the dark that would be her space for the next three hours, or longer, depending on if the meeting ran late.

For a long time, the different ambassadors introduced themselves and traded jokes. Wasn’t their situation hilarious? Ambassadors to a criminal? Didn’t they all remember when Kira was just a serial killer?

Haruko dug her nails into her palm at that last one. If she was still working for the SLA, she would have reported them in a heartbeat. Well, she was still working for the SLA, technically, so she might report them anyway.

Then, they turned to the topic at hand.

“So, what are we going to do to actually appease him?” one of them, a tall man with thin bones and thin glasses said.

“Haven’t you heard?” one of the women asked. She was invisible to Haruko, except for the edge of her cascading brownish red hair. “Kira’s gone bonkers. Completely lost it.”

“Lost it?” one of them scoffed. “You’re talking about a man who insists we refer to him as God.” He paused. “In all of our official communications—God has done this, God has done that, so-and-so has been struck down by the wrath of God.”

“I heard about it, too,” a quieter, mousy woman said.

“He’s obsessed,” the brunette woman said, “with this one girl.”

“Oh, come on,” another one said. He was taller, with barely any hair left, except for little scraps at the edge of his scalp. “He could have any girl he likes. He’s already married a few times, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” one of the men said. “A couple of times over. Can’t remember the exact number.”

“Seven,” the mousy woman said. “Four wives, three husbands.”

Everyone at the table nodded.

“This is a different _kind_ of obsession, though,” the brunette said. “It’s not sexual. At least, I don’t think so. I hope not. The girl’s young enough to be his daughter.”

“And how do you know all of this?” the thin man asked.

“I was just in his compound,” the brunette said. “Went to the baby shower for one of his kids. He had a whole wall of pictures of her in his office and keeping records on her every movement.”

“So, we can’t find this girl,” one of the men said. “And present her as some kind of trophy. He already knows who she is.”

“No,” the mousy woman said. “I think it would be best to marry someone to him. One of our people. It’s a guaranteed in.”

“That’s what the United States did,” the tall man said. “Way back when. I don’t know if it gave them access.”

“It did,” The brown-haired woman said. “I used to deal with them a lot. They could still communicate with their woman, and she could communicate with him.”

“Who would do such a thing?” the mostly-bald man asked.

“I have a niece,” the thin man said. “She loves attention and the spotlight. And money and glamor. And she works in international politics.”

“How long could we give her to think about it?” the mousy woman asked.

“And him,” the brunette woman added. “He’ll need time to think about it, too.”

They all nodded.

“She’s here,” he said. “Staying in this hotel, with us. I thought we might want something like this …”

“Like what?” the tall man asked.

“Like marriage,” he said. “I already asked her, kind of. And she liked the idea, at least.”

“So, is that our plan?” The brunette woman said.

Everyone nodded.

“Altar diplomacy,” one of the men scoffed. “How barbaric.”

Haruko gritted her teeth and leaned her head against the wall. She couldn’t leave until they were done, or they were likely to hear her. Somehow, though, she gotten the feeling that was all she needed.

And, as soon as the meeting was over, Haruko checked the records. Sure enough, one of the rooms the diplomats had reserved was for a single, young girl.

Luckily, as hotel manager, Haruko had all of the keys.

But first, she had to consult Aoi and Michika. She put the piece of paper where their drop point was and found herself counting the days until they met again.

They met back up at the warehouse and discussed their plan. Michika wanted Haruko to go by herself, since she worked at the hotel and everything, but Haruko didn’t think that she could actually communicate what they wanted to the young wife-to-be. Aoi volunteered to join her. Michika was against it, but, Haruko reasoned, they were also both young women. And Aoi really believed in what they were doing. It would be easier for someone like that to convince someone else.

Privately, Haruko was also more excited to spend time with the fiery resistance girl.

And so, late at night, Aoi joined Haruko in one of the hotel’s beige hallways. It was odd to see her here, a clear part of her new life, in the halls that she’d spent so much time in.

Haruko leaned forward and unlocked the door with a click. They heard a gasp from the inside. Aoi went in first.

The lights were off, so Haruko turned them on.

“Don’t panic,” Aoi whispered to her.

The wife-to-be was in bed, wearing some kind of white nightgown. Aoi stood over her, holding some of the white sheets over her mouth.

Haruko checked behind all the photo frames and on the bottom side of the furniture. The room wasn’t bugged, at least not where the bugs were usually placed. She nodded at Aoi, and Aoi nodded back.

“We’re the resistance,” Aoi said, taking the sheet of the girl’s mouth.

The girl coughed. “Really,” she said. “And what do you want to do with me?”

“I think you know,” Haruko said.

Aoi added: “We certainly know about your uncle’s plan to marry you to Kira.”

She nodded furiously.

“Do you want to?” Haruko asked. In another life, she figured, she would be in the girl’s position. It would be an easy way to the power and prestige she wanted so badly. But, at the same time, being married to Kira would be a steep cost. And Haruko wanted that power all on her own, without anyone else getting in the way.

The girl shrugged. “It’s better than nothing.” She paused. “You have to do something, to survive in this world. A little bit of sex now and then …”

“Yeah,” Aoi said, sitting down on the bed next to her. “We figured.”

“I don’t love him,” she said.

“No one does,” Aoi said. “That’s why we’re trying to get rid of him.”

“Get rid of …” the girl trailed off. “Kira? Is that possible?”

“He’s just a man,” Aoi said. “Or he was, at some point. And we can reduce him back to that again.” Aoi smiled, and Haruko felt her heart flutter. “And, you know, it would be nice to live in a world where you don’t have to do stuff like this.”

“I don’t know,” the girl said. “You’ll always have to do something, to survive.”

“But something else,” Haruko said. “Something better.”

“There will always be powerful men we have to answer to,” the girl said.

“But not ones that can kill us at the drop of a hat,” Aoi said. She was breathing quickly, bouncing up an down on the bed. “Can you imagine that? Being able to say what you want, go where you want, at the time you want to go—without fear of getting killed in the middle of the night?”

“Before Kira, there were criminals,” she said. “They would stop me—” she made eye contact with Haruko and Aoi. “Us—from going anywhere—everywhere anyway.”

Aoi nodded. “But they were something we could fight.” She paused. “With martial arts—pepper spray—the police—they were something we could deal with. But a man,” she paused again. “A man, who lives in a compound up on a hill—a man like a force of nature, who insists we call him one—we can’t.”

“So you admit he’s like God,” the girl said. “And still you want to fight him.” She nodded at Haruko. “What do you think of all this, hotel manager?”

Haruko perked up and looked at her. “Just because he’s like God doesn’t mean he is God.”

The girl nodded. “But do you think God would have sent down someone like Kira if we didn’t need some punishing, as a human race?”

The different models on the portraits, the holes in the security cameras, the words _To Serve and Protect_ written on the wall of the SLA’s office—they were all showing the limits of Kira’s power. “I don’t think he was sent by God,” Haruko said. The servants lying dead, the watchtowers, her mother braiding her hair. “I should know.” She said. “I used to live in his house.”

The girl shook her head and rubbed her eyes. “What do you guys want me to do, anyway?”

“Get the plans for the compound,” Aoi said. “Give them to us. We’ll take care of the rest.”

The girl sighed. “I will need a position in whatever government you set up.”

Haruko nodded. “You’re already in with the right people.”

“OK,” the girl said. “Fine, alright, you’ve got your girl.” She sighed. “Can you let me back to bed now?”

“Don’t tell anyone we had this meeting,” Haruko said. “Really.”

The girl nodded her sleepy head. “OK,” she said.

“We can kill you,” Aoi said. “And we will if—”

“I get the point,” the girl said. “You’re acting like our lives aren’t being threatened all the time, every day, for as long as we live.”

“It won’t be as long as we live,” Aoi said. “If we can do anything about it.”


	5. Forgery

“So, to conclude,” Aoi said. “I think a noncombative criminal justice system is the only kind that will every find true justice. It’s ridiculous to think that two heavily biased parties will somehow cancel each other out.”

Haruko nodded. She hadn’t really known enough to contribute much to the conversation, but it was always worth hearing Aoi talk about the things she was passionate about.

“Hey, how come I’ve never been to your apartment?” Aoi asked.

They had been going on coffee-type dates for a few weeks now. In the beginning, that had been to discuss their assassination plans, but that excused had faded now that they had the compound plans and Michika promised to get them weapons.

“It’s around here, isn’t it?” Aoi asked.

Haruko looked around. A giant image of Kira’s face was painted on a white wall on their right, so that must be the grocery store. They were about halfway between Haruko’s apartment and the SLA office.

“Yeah,” Haruko said.

“We should go there, then,” Aoi said. “No sense in standing around out here.”

Michika had told them that people used to do that. Spend time outside. Since there were fewer abandoned houses waiting to be filled, people used to not have homes at all and just lived outside. Similarly, people actually sat at those tables in the parks and conversated with each other, not feeling like their every move was being watched by an anonymous eye through a red-lighted camera. “Yeah,” Haurko said. She took Aoi’s upper arm and started to lead her down the road.

Aoi pressed the button next to the elevator door.

“It’s broken,” Haruko said.

They both sighed.

At the top of the stairs, Haruko paused before opening the door. “You should know …”

“What?” Aoi asked. “You collect porcelain figurines or something?”

“No,” Haruko said. “I collect …” How the hell was she supposed to frame this? “propaganda.”

Aoi didn’t react.

“I mean, my apartment walls are covered in it,” she said, then bit her tongue. Way to sound crazy, Haruko.

“I guess that’s cheap decoration,” Aoi said.

Haruko nodded. “It’s free,” she said. “I mean—if you look for it in the right place.” She paused. “I just think it’s funny, you know.”

Aoi nodded.

“I mean, all of the different types,” Haruko said. “All of the different types of propaganda. And how they change models every couple of years.”

“Sure,” Aoi said. “I mean we have to understand our enemies, right?”

Oh, but that wasn’t it. Haruko unlocked the door, figuring the damage would be done as soon as Aoi saw her room. She stepped forward and turned the lights on.

“Oh,” Aoi said, all of Kira’s eyes meeting hers. “OK … well … this is a lot.”

Haruko smiled, hoping Aoi would remember why they were seeing each other in the first place. “I—well, if I can be perfectly honest—it’s the power,” she said, mumbling the last few words.

“Huh?” Aoi asked.

“I just—for a long time, I wanted to be closer to Kira’s power,” she said. “And having him here feels that way.”

“I guess,” Aoi said. She strutted across the room and sat herself down on Haruko’s futon. “You steal them from the alleyways or something?”

Haruko nodded. “It’s a little bit illicit, I guess,” she shrugged. “Kind of a weird rush.”

“Well, I can’t blame you,” Aoi said. “There’s nothing like that anymore—nothing that will give you a shot of adrenaline without killing you.”

Haruko nodded, careful. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Sure,” Aoi said.

“I only have water,” Haruko said, filling up a glass from the sink.

“Whatever,” Aoi said. She was leaning against the wall now. “God, there’s really a lot of them.”

“All of the Kiras that have been posted since I moved to Tokyo,” Haruko said with a note of pride.

“So, where did you live before here?” Aoi asked.

Haruko shrugged. “Moved around a lot. Lot of different places.” Then, she paused. “Do you want the real answer?” she looked over at Aoi.

“There’s a real answer?” Aoi asked.

“I don’t like to talk about it,” Haruko said. She was really making herself say all of this, wasn’t she? “But I was part of the resistance for a little while,” she paused. “In England.”

“You were?” Aoi asked. “Why did we have to convince you, then?”

Haruko sighed and leaned against the wall. “That’s exactly why you had to convince me. Things went south.” She paused. “One of us—we were all just kids, basically, and he was my first kiss—turned us in to the SLA.”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone.”

“But you survived because of your weird name thing,” Aoi said.

Haruko nodded.

“Your name is such a power move,” Aoi said. “On the part of your mom, I mean.”

“How do you know it was my mom?”

Aoi shrugged. “That’s a mom move, not a dad move,” she paused and turned to look at Haruko. “Your parents—what did they do? Resistance?”

Haruko shook her head. “They worked in Kira’s house. As housekeepers, I mean.”

“So, how did you—”

“I’m not sure. My mom worked hard to smuggle me out.” Haruko paused. “She—she died, in the process.” And wasn’t that an image stamped across her memory—her mom, sprawled across the grass, mouth and eyes wide open.

“Hmmm,” Aoi said. “That’s interesting. I, mean, I guess Kira keeps his servants on lockdown—he must, or else we could have gotten the plans from them.”

Haruko nodded. “That was how I ended up with Oba-chan.”

“Your aunt?” Aoi asked.

“I’m not sure,” Haruko said. “She just told me—and all of the other resistance kids—to call her that.”

“I wonder if you have any family,” Aoi said. “Here, I mean. If your parents worked in Kira’s house, they’d probably live in Tokyo.”

“I don’t know,” Haruko said. Aoi’s eyes were pretty from this angle, and so close. “I’ve never looked into it.”

“You could, you know,” Aoi said. “The records place is right here, just a couple blocks away.” Haruko knew the building—a beige monstrosity with no windows. Right by the SLA’s office, naturally. “If we’re going to be living under this …” Aoi gestured at all of the posters, “We might as well take advantage of it.”

Haruko nodded and leaned back. Aoi reached over and grabbed her hand, and Haruko leaned into her. “I’ll do it,” She muttered into her shoulder. Aoi leaned over and pressed a kiss into her mouth.

And that was why, three days later, Haruko found herself standing in front of that beige monstrosity.

“Hello,” the receptionist said as Haruko walked in.

“I have an appointment,” Haruko said.

“Yes,” the receptionist said. “I see your name here.” Haruko flinched but tried not to show it. “You’re going to have to wait a couple of minutes, for us to get your records ready.” She smiled, then went back to looking at the computer.

Haruko sat down in one of the cushioned chairs in the foyer. There were large windows there, frosted as to only give off a soft, dim light.

A few minutes passed as Haruko studied the room. A chandelier was above them, unlit, opulent and simple at the same time, and covered in a few centimeters of dust. The newest magazine on the coffee table was from the end of the previous year.

An older woman opened one of the wooden doors on one side of the hallway. They were the same type of material as the wall itself and blended into it. Her heels clicked across the cement floor as she walked over to Haruko.

“Ms. Yagami?” She asked.

Haruko sat up, a little surprised to hear her last name. “Y—yes,” Haruko said.

“We have your records,” she walked in front of Haruko, leading her back into a windowless room with a metal table and a box of paper on the floor.

Haruko sat down at the desk. She scooted the box towards her, then took out the top paper. It was her birth certificate. Her name was printed at the top, Haruko Yagami, followed by her parents. Misa Amane and Light Yagami.

Amane. So that must have been where—

Haruko bit her lip. She was in the habit of not thinking too much about her true name, mostly in case Kira developed some kind of mind-reading technique.

Everything else on her birth certificate wasn’t surprising. Oba-chan did have her birthday right, she supposed, and her place of birth was Tokyo.

Haruko moved on. Her mother’s occupation was as a model and an actress, and, for some reason, the records department had acquired some of her clippings. It was odd, in a way, to reconcile that beautiful, made-up face with the distressed one that Haruko had so often seen during her childhood. And the dead one on the night of her escape.

Pictures of her father were rarer. One picture had both of them in it, standing by each other, each looking off in a different direction. Her father’s eyes met the camera, and it occurred to Haruko that she had the same eyes as him. The same gaze, as well, intense and unrelenting.

And, brown-haired, Japanese—he looked a lot like Kira, too.


	6. Breaking and Entering

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, OK, well it hasn’t been two and a half years has it? I genuinely forgot about this story, and then it was finals time, and then I forgot about it again … 
> 
> But the good news is … double update.

“It looks like I will have to take the job after all,” the SLA woman told Haruko. “The lieutenant above me was struck down by God’s wrath,” she said. “He was caught on the side of the resistance.”

Haruko’s heart rate sped up. So that’s why they hadn’t gotten any communiques from Michika in a few weeks. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Haruko said. “Did you know him—them well?”

The woman sighed and looked off into the distance. She said something about mutual responsibilities, which Haruko didn’t catch.

They had the plans for the compound—the diplomat’s niece had finally given it to them, and both Haruko and Aoi had a copy in their apartment. The weapons were split up similarly as well.

If they’d found Michika, though, all bets were off. They would likely find his copy of the plans and know what they were up to.

Haruko sighed. She had to get a message to Aoi as quickly as possible.

“I can keep you on, as an informant,” the woman said. “I think it would make sense. You’re pretty good at getting information out of people, and well-liked. You’ll have higher status in the organization, reporting to a lieutenant.”

Haruko nodded. That meant their timeline was accelerated, until before their next weekly meeting. Unless the promotion process took a while, but that wasn’t something she could count on.

So, on her way home, she left the note under the poster. Then, each day, she walked there, waiting for a reply.

Aoi only took a day to get back to her. She was sad about Michika dying, but said they needed to move as quickly as they could. Most likely, they’d try to change the security of the compound. That would make their current plans useless. It would, most likely, take a few days, so their best chances were now.

Haruko headed, under the cover of darkness that night, to the base of Kira’s compound.

Aoi’s blue hair was framed by the spotlights that lit up the area above them. The light caught the slight frizz on the edge of her hair, making it look like a halo. Haruko leaned forward and kissed her, gently and on the lips.

When she pulled back, Aoi was smiling. “Let’s go,” she said, and the two of them headed up the hill.

It occurred to Haruko that she was probably going to die that night. She couldn’t go back to the way she was living beforehand, anyway, with the change in the SLA hierarchy and now that she’d found Aoi. None of it would have a purpose, either, than climbing higher and higher in a failing society.

There probably had been ones before them. Other people had climbed the dirt embankment going up to Kira’s compound, careful of the watch lights and snipers. Some had probably even gotten further, closer to Kira. They were all dead now, and Haruko might be the next to join them.

But she might not. And the hope she hung on too, all the way up the embankment, to the wall, where Aoi nodded at her wordlessly. Across the wall as well, and through the realization that all of this seemed—a little familiar.

Those trees were where Oba-chan had first hidden on that night. Haruko’s mom had died on the rise, her face still caked in makeup. And there was the door they had fled from, the one from where her mom had told her to run.

The hope maintained itself all the way until they heard some shouting coming from one of the towers. Until Aoi shot a few warning shots in the shouting’s direction. Until two sets of hands grabbed Haruko’s arms. Until a voice told them to drop their weapons. Until they complied. Until they were lead through the door.

Even then, Haruko couldn’t help but think that the hallway was familiar. It was the same one as she saw in her dreams—wide floorboards, large, blank white walls, a sliding door every few feet. More fitting of a courthouse than a living space.

No—it wasn’t just familiar. It was the same hallway as she ran down in that dream, the one with the dead servant. One of the places her mother whispered her true name to.

The guards took them into an office. Two walls of it were covered in bookcases, with the last being a window. The bookcases on the right side seemed heavier, somehow, and more real. Another door led off the right wall. As a whole, the room was amazingly cluttered. There were papers stacked everywhere, on the floor, on the chairs, in the bookcase, along with all over the desk. Most of them were print outs of various things, some of which Haruko recognized as SLA reports, but there was also an alarming number of pieces of plain notebook paper with a variety of names written on them.

And standing at the desk, his face downturned, was Kira.

“These are the ones we found,” the guard holding Haruko’s arm said, throwing her onto the ground. On her right, she saw the other guard do the same thing to Aoi. The guards stepped back, and the man lifted his head up.

Haruko allowed herself to realize that he looked older than she’d expected, and more tired. He had wrinkles around his eyes and streaks of white in his hair. Even knowing how long he’d been in power, the propaganda still managed to burn one image in her mind, and it was a different one than stood in front of her.

As it turned out, he wasn’t angry. He was smiling.

Naturally. The man she was dealing with was _Kira_ , after all, and he’d either stopped feeling things long ago, or he’d grown too smug to think of them as a serious threat.

Aoi stood up, determined to hold her ground. “You monster!” she said. “Do you realize what—what you’re doing?”

“I know what I’m doing,” Kira said. The smile fell off his face. “I’m making the world a better place.”

“People out their live in fear,” Aoi said. “I don’t know what it was like beforehand, but nowadays no ones anything, says anything, goes anywhere—goes outside at all, really—without fear of it getting them killed. You’ve instituted all of these laws—and for what?”

Kira started to speak, but Aoi wasn’t done yet.

“Just to feed your own ego?” Aoi said. “You’re not God. Gods is supposed to be benevolent, to forgive along with punish. All you’ve done is created hell on earth!”

“Maybe you see it that way,” Kira said. “But you’re too young. You didn’t know what the world was like—”

“I don’t have to,” Aoi said. “I don’t have to know what it was like to know that anything is better than this.” She smiled. “You can kill me, you know. Whatever comes next can’t be worse.”

Kira shook his head. “The world used to be terrorized by crime. Do you really think that young women such as yourselves—” he glanced at Haruko, “—could walk at night freely before? People were afraid of crime, of war, of corruption, and we don’t have any of that, anymore.”

“Are you sure about that?” Haruko said. “I’m sure if we counted your murders, the murder rate is as high as it’s ever been.”

“There is nothing after death,” Kira said, with all of the certainty of someone who knew. “And there is no God. There is only me.” He reached across the desk for a piece of notebook paper. “And you don’t need to worship me, or pray to me, or get down on your knees.” He took a pen off a stand at the front of the desk.

“Is this really what you want?” Aoi said. “If you really want the world to be a better place, you should let people say and do as they want. They’ll be happier that way, and better off.”

Kira sighed. “People always make such a big deal out of political freedoms,” he said. “I think most people couldn’t care less what they can say as long as they have food and a roof over their heads. And more people do now, than ever before.”

“You don’t know that,” Aoi said. “And you can’t speak for everyone, living in this compound, far away from the city life.”

“Is that so?” Kira asked.

All Haruko had to do was find something to kill him with. A pen, maybe, or a letter opener.

“No,” Aoi said. “You can only speak for yourself, and, I, for one, disagree with you.”

“Interesting,” Kira said. “I’m glad to hear that, Aoi Kuchiki.” Then, with a flourish, he wrote something down on the piece of paper in front of him. Once he was done, he looked up. “Any last words, Ms. Kuchiki?”

How did he know her name? Did he know Haruko’s true name? Did he have the eyes? He didn’t seem to, but it was dark in the room, and—oh, God—what was she doing here?

Aoi looked over at Haruko. “Maybe not me, maybe not today but…” she collapsed to her knees, still choking words out. Haruko ran over to her, placing her arms underneath her back. “Someday … someone will …” her mouth and tongue steadied out, while her heart contracted for one last time and then stopped. The light left her eyes.

Haruko dropped Aoi’s dead body on the floor, which it hit with a thump. Then, she got on her feet, wiped her hands on her shirt and faced Kira.


	7. Manslaughter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case this is not otherwise apparent, this is the last chapter of the story. Double update, so be sure to read chapter 6 before this one. Thanks for reading.

“I have to admit,” Kira said. “I was surprised by you.” He was leaning with one hand on his desk, looking unsteady.

Haruko nodded. “I’m sure you weren’t _expecting_ either of us.” She nodded at Aoi’s dead body.

“That’s true.” He paused. “But I was actually surprised by you.”

“Why?” Haruko asked. Did he know who she was? He must have.

Kira was looking directly at them now. He smiled. Then, he walked over to the bookshelves. Haruko could see now that there was a break in them with a corkboard. “Come here,” he said.

Haruko took a reluctant step forward. She still couldn’t see the corkboard. Haruko took another step.

Once she could, a chill ran down Haruko’s spine. It was covered with pictures of her.

“It’s been fun,” Kira said. “Tracking your movements. Watching you get involved with the resistance.” He looked over at Aoi. “And that’s not the only thing you got involved with. But the show’s over, now.” He smiled again. Kira walked back to his desk, saying, “I’m going to kill you. But, first, I want to know …”

He was like a villain in one of those old spy movies that Oba-chan liked, Haruko decided. Always wanting to go on a monolog.

Kira said, smiling that same smile. He looked over at Haruko. “I want to know about you. Why you’re here, and how you got here.”

Why was he so interested in her? It didn’t make sense, unless he knew about her name. And no one knew about her name. Her mother had made sure of that.

“I’m here because you’re a terrible person,” Haruko said. It was the truth and would likely give her a chance to see him flinch.

He didn’t. “And how’s that,” he said.

Haruko smiled back. “You’re a killer. I walked home from work every day and see corpses lying on the street.” She paused. “Crime stopped a long time ago. You can’t tell me anyone deserves that.”

Kira smiled again. Haruko was starting to suspect that he was hiding behind all of these smiles. “I am a savior,” he said.

“From what?” Haruko asked. “People live in fear of you.”

“You’re twenty-five. Too young to know what the world was without me,” Kira said. “I would kill you, too, except …”

“You don’t know my name,” Haruko said. It was not a taunt; it was a fact. No one knew Haruko’s name, except for herself, Michika, Oba-chan and her mother. And they all were dead.

He smiled again. His smiles were starting to fall apart, getting more jagged and teeth-filled. “You’re a clever girl,” he said.

And then, for the first time since Oba-chan had died, Haruko felt anger coursing through her veins, touching every part of her body, making her fists clench and her skin overheat. She took a step forward. “You don’t know me,” she said.

“But I do, Haruko. I’ve watched you for years, now. It’s been the most fun I’ve had since …” his eyes left her, dulling and losing focus. His concentration left the room and the present, instead focusing on some faraway time or place. Kira shook away the thought. “In a long time.”

Haruko walked up to him. It would be much easier to kill him from a close distance. Not a good thing to leave Aoi’s body, but Haruko knew she was dead, and there was nothing she could do about that. Nothing except what they came here to do.

This was the first time Haruko got a good look at everything that was on his desk. Papers were stacked up like abandoned skyscrapers, and then spread out everywhere like broken glass after an earthquake. A few pens were scattered about the mess—mostly fountain pens that had to cost several thousand yen a piece.

There were also two photographs on his desk, but Haruko couldn’t see either one because the frames were facing the other way. Haruko wrinkled her nose. Who was important enough to Kira for him to keep a photo of them on his desk?

She ran through what she knew of Kira’s personal life—three husbands, four wives, about fifteen kids spread between them.

“Now,” Kira said. He flicked the guards away with a motion of his hand. “I want to talk to you.”

Haruko wanted to ask why—he seemed like too paranoid of a man to leave her alone with him. But that wasn’t the case, obviously. So, she swallowed her doubt, and it sank to the bottom of her stomach like a large stone. “About what?”

Kira smiled. It must have been something he’d learned at some point—smile when you seem nervous, or scared, or you’re not sure what to do. Not that different from what Oba-chan had told Haruko. “You.” He said. “I bet I know more about you than you know about me.”

For a moment there, that was probably true. But then, Haruko leaned forward far enough to make out the photographs Kira kept on his desk.

One of them was a Victorian-style family portrait. It showed a man, a woman and their daughter. He was dressed in a suit, and the two girls were dressed in frilly white dresses. Only the woman was making an attempt to smile, and it was obviously fake. The man, Haruko realized, was Kira.

A few seconds later, Haruko recognized the woman. Blond hair, in pig tails, smiles that never reached her eyes—those eyes, they changed color frequently, but never lost that same look in them. It was a face that lurked at the edge of her consciousness, never seen but always felt; pressing up against her mind for an instant before disappearing. It was a face that only appeared fully in her dreams. Her mother.

And, didn’t that make sense? She dreamed of endless wide hallways, and courtyards behind every door. Servants dying, right in front of her. Oba-chan was wrong. Her parents didn’t work in Kira’s house; they lived there.

That meant that the little girl in the picture, the one standing in between her parents, on a chair, like that would make them the same height, was her. And didn’t that make sense? She had the same hair color—a dirty blond. And couldn’t she remember that day, if she thought hard enough about it? The cameraman’s flash had been the brightest thing she’d ever seen. Her father was there, and he seemed like the strangest man to her—someone she’d heard discussed far more times than she’d ever met.

Compared to that, the second picture was mundane. It showed a row of men, all dressed in dark suits. One of them was a younger Kira, but Haruko didn’t know any of the others. They probably weren’t important.

Haruko took a step back. If Kira was her father, that meant she knew his name.

So, Haruko had found the chink in Kira’s armor. She had his name, and she just had to write it down on the paper, the same way he had written down Aoi’s name. That had killed her, so maybe it would kill him as well.

That was the point in time when Haruko’s mind returned to the present, and she realized Kira was looking at her, waiting for a response. “Like what,” she said. “What do you know about me?”

Kira paused for a moment, thinking. Probably trying to figure out what would freak her out the most. “You reported the manager of the hotel you used to work at. Michika Harada was dispatched to the case. He saw your name and recruited you to the resistance. And you fell in with her,” he nodded again at Aoi’s dead body.

“I was born here,” Haruko said. “Raised here. By your first wife. Who helped me escape. And you’ve been tracking me ever since.”

Kira walked back over the corkboard. Haruko’s heart was racing in her ears. She knew his name—this could be her opening.

“Not that whole time,” he said, looking over the security footage still he had of her.

Most of them showed her in brightly colored clothes, outlined against the propaganda. The propaganda she’d orientated herself by, the ones that were stamped on her mind, on the inside of her eyelids.

“I thought I’d lost you, for a while.” He took another step. “But then you showed up, in England, with my sister, who I’d also thought had disappeared.” He smiled and shook his head. “Poor Sayu. She never was the same, after she was kidnapped as a teenager. Never quite in touch with reality. Always a bit dreamy.”

That didn’t line up with the serious, stone-faced Oba-chan that Haruko knew.

“I was sorry that I had to kill her, but I had no choice,” Kira said. He turned around and faced Haruko. “You, on the other hand, I do have a choice with.”

“And what choice is that?” Haruko asked.

“My children—I hate all of them,” Kira said. “They grew up here, in these walls, with no concept of the world. They sit around all day, lazy, spoiled, with sex and drugs and all other sorts of things. None of them can be my heir.”

The response seemed to hang in the air, unspoken. Haruko decided to say it anyway. “And I can be.”

Kira nodded. “You’ve suffered—you’ve lived out there. You’re motivated.” He smiled again, so wide it showed his tongue. “You’d have to be, or you wouldn’t be here.”

Haruko nodded. Part of her, she knew, would have loved this. To be this close to Kira—this close to the raw power that emulated from this room, from the desk … She looked at Aoi’s body.

“You’re right,” she said. “I am motivated.”

And, with that, she grabbed on the pens on the desk, one that was already uncapped, and put it to the open notebook that was lying there, right underneath where Aoi’s name was printed in neat, broad strokes. Haruko remembered her birth certificate, the typed, wide kanji that told her what she needed to know. Light Yagami, she spelled out, and then dropped the pen.

Kira was standing a lot closer to her now. He furrowed his brow, looked back and forth to the notebook and her. He took one step forward and glanced at the photographs on his desk. Then, unceremoniously, he collapsed.

No alarms sounded. No guards came rushing in. No evidence of what had happened escaped the room. Outside, it remained a peaceful, steady autumn night.

Haruko stared at the notebook for a long, long time.


End file.
